A MAN accused of throwing a live hen to an alligator at a Hunter wildlife park will fight an animal cruelty charge in court.
Peter William Smith did not front Raymond Terrace Local Court in person on Monday when his lawyer Bryan Wrench confirmed the case would head to hearing.
Mr Wrench revealed the prosecution would call four witnesses, and two would give evidence for the defence in the matter.
He told the court the defended hearing was expected to take three hours.
Smith entered a not guilty plea to one count of aggravated cruelty upon an animal when the case was first mentioned in Raymond Terrace Local Court in February.
The charge was levelled against the 57-year-old after an investigation into an incident at Oakvale Wildlife Park at Salt Ash on January 2.
Police and RSPCA investigators were called to the Hunter wildlife park after reports a chicken had been tossed to an alligator that afternoon.
Police allege Smith plucked a Chinese Silkie Bantam hen named Betty White from her enclosure and threw her into the park's alligator enclosure, where she was killed.
Magistrate Justin Peach set the three-hour hearing down for September this year at Raymond Terrace Local Court.
It's expected to mark the first time Smith has had to appear in court since he was charged at Singleton Police Station and released with no bail conditions in the days after the alleged incident.
Oakvale Wildlife Park handlers remembered hand-raised Betty White as a friendly, "great chook" who was a golden girl of the organisation's foster mother program for endangered Bush Stone Curlew chicks.
Mr Wrench had earlier told the court the case involving Smith was a "strange one" that was centred on an "allegation about an alligator eating a chicken".
At that time, he described the act of alleged aggravated animal cruelty as something viewers might see in a David Attenborough documentary, or how a chicken might be prepared for a KFC meal.
